A young woman was mysteriously found lying dead in a field with a bloodied knife and shards of glass around her – but no clue about how she died.
Magdalena Rascon, 24, was reported missing by her worried family in Santa Fe, last seeing her looking ‘spooked’ through the window of her front door.
She had fallen in with a bad crowd, was doing drugs, had a boyfriend her family didn’t know, and was often seen wailing and crying outside her home, police heard.
Adding to the intrigue, her mother, Sylvia Martinez, told police a man called her claiming he was holding Rascon hostage and demanded a ransom.
It was not until days later, on December 14, that police were called about her body, found across the street from her home ‘half naked’ and partially eaten by animals.
Rascon’s torso, arms, hands, much of her clothes, and the glass shards were covered in brown or red ‘stains’, a newly released police report revealed.
However, the Office of the Medical Investigator ‘advised that no signs of trauma were observed on Magdalena’ and the report didn’t specify what left the stains.
Several officers quoted in the report, however, described Rascon being covered in blood and missing huge parts of her flesh – likely from animals eating it.
Police said they were still trying to determine the cause of death, but that it was not presently being treated as a homicide and meth was found in her system.
Magdalena Rascon, 24, was mysteriously found lying dead in a field in Santa Fe with a bloodied knife and shards of glass around her – but no clue about how she died
This was despite Santa Fe Police Chief Paul Joye calling Rascon’s death ‘suspicious’ in the days after her body was discovered.
The autopsy report is not yet complete and the knife is still being tested at the New Mexico Department of Public Safety’s forensic laboratory.
The confounding mystery of Rascon’s death and the police’s lack of answers more than two months later has frustrated her already heartbroken family.
Rascon was in trouble for months before she disappeared, her family and witnesses cited in the report told police.
Cars were seen picking her up from her apartment at San Tierra Apartments, across Camino Juliana from the field, at all hours of the day and night.
A neighbor said not only was she often screaming or crying outside the building, she was at other times dancing in only her underwear.
Another told detectives she ‘would always see a guy fighting with Magdalena at the apartments’.
Martinez last saw her daughter on the morning of December 10, staring out the window of their front door looking ‘frightened’ and ‘spooked’,
She was wearing a cheetah print shawl that was later found lying on the grass next to her body.
Rascon had fallen in with a bad crowd, was doing drugs, had a boyfriend her family didn’t know, and was often seen wailing and crying outside her home
Rascon’s torso, arms, hands, much of her clothes, and the glass shards were covered in brown or red ‘stains’, a newly released police report revealed
As the hours passed, no one in her family could reach Rascon, and they eventually reported her missing.
Later, Martinez got a call from a man on a Mexico-registered number, claiming he was part of a cartel and had kidnapped Rascon, demanding a ransom.
Martinez said sounded like a scam, though she could hear a woman crying in the background, who said she needed help.
Before she hung up, she heard the woman say ‘Mom’ in a low voice, but said it sounded like the voice was recorded.
She later told told man she ‘was at different locations gathering the money’ for the ransom, but in reality never left her apartment.
Even the way her body was found had unexplained details. The woman who called 911 at 1.25pm claimed it was her mother who found the body – but a day before.
The older woman, she said, told her she called it in that day – December 13 – about 11am but was told to report it to the San Tierra Apartments office.
However, dispatchers told investigators there was no call about the body that day, according to the report.
A man who lived nearby also told police he saw a grey Toyota Tundra pickup truck drive across the field and ‘dump something’ about 1pm on December 14.
Police found tire tracks about 10ft from her body that led from Camino Juliana (the road her apartment building is on) to Agua Fría Street.
The report noted they canvassed the area looking for CCTV footage, but didn’t say if they found any.
The confounding mystery of Rascon’s death and the police’s lack of answers more than two months later has frustrated her already heartbroken family
Rascon’s father Hector Gabriel Rascon has been behind bars at Santa Fe County Jail since October without bail, charged with drug trafficking.
He requested to be allowed out of jail to attend his daughter’s funeral, but was denied by State District Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer over concerns about his long criminal history and skipping court dates in the past.
Hector Rascon is charged in two separate cases of possessing fentanyl pills – more than 17,000 in one case and 2,600 in the other.
He was also accused of trafficking in a federal case after half-pound of cocaine and about 36,000 fentanyl pills was found in his home.
That case collapsed after Santa Fe County sheriff’s Deputy Patrick Ficke was accused of misconduct.
